Article response 2: Babylonians

 

1)      I believe the Babylonians chose a base-60 system as it would be significantly easier to communicate findings on time if each space represented a new place value of 10. Perhaps it’s a bit of an antiquated thought, but I feel before GPS navigation systems were created, people would try and calculate the time it would take them to travel across a river or sea in order to gain access to precious materials or to trade with other colonies. It would assist them because there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour.

2)      I don’t know too much about the use of 60 in our daily lives other than the idea of time as well. That being said, I know that when we look at measuring angles, 60 degrees is very useful as it fits into 180 degrees which would be a flat line and 360 degrees making a full circle. There are also 24 hours in a day and that does not seem to fit evenly into this system

 

3)      Upon further research it appears there is an element of time that I missed as the Babylonians’ calendar had 360 days. I suppose this makes sense as each month would be 30 days which makes me questions why our current calendar has 365 days and each month is a little different. Moreover, it appears the Babylonians are simply expanding on the Sumerians where each day is actually 12 hours and so one week Monday-Friday could be categorized into 60. It appears some hypothesize that you can also count on your fingers (excluding your thumb) by counting on the joints of the fingers (each finger having 3 and you have 4 fingers, so you can count in 12’s).

 

In other cultures, such as in Thailand, the 60th birthday is seen as a significant milestone as they have survived the slings and arrows of 60 years and still have plenty of life left in them. In Chinese tradition, on the 60th birthday it’s when you have been around the Chinese zodiac with 12 animal years 5 times. (https://occamstypewriter.org/trading-knowledge/2017/07/16/the-meaning-of-sixty/)

 

 

The article highlights the extent to which the history of math recognition is misrepresented as their were many political, economic, and relational factors that influence the spread of information. One things that surprised me was the extent to which the Arabs helped propagate information in the post-Alexandria era. For example, there were many caliphs that Indians and Chinese came to to translate their works. As a result, resources could be more easily distributed in Europe as a result of the Arabs connections and ability to translate. The article mentioned that the Arabs in some way saved the Greeks which is fascinating.

 

The second thing I found interesting was the constant reference to the Egyptians. It seems that they are not given the credit they merit. For example, the Greeks actually developed a lot of their mathematics from the Egyptians.  One example of this is how Pythagoras’ teacher (who was also Greek) spent years learning under the Egyptians and even travelling as far as India to learn.

 

Lastly, it’s not shocking that India make some huge contributions to the mathematical world as I know that the Indians also were key in developing games like chess which are mathematical in nature. What did surprise me was that the relationship between the Chinese and Indians – two vastly distinct civilizations. In fact, the Chinese translated Indian works on astronmy, mathematics, and medicine. They even went as far as to hire Indian astronomers onto their board to teach the method of kuttaka – a method to solve  indeterminate equations. Fascinating.

Comments

  1. Erica HuangOctober 4, 2024 at 4:57 PM

    Excellent post, Zain! Being ethnically Chinese, I am familiar with the significance of the 60th birthday. It's interesting to know that is also part of Thai culture. The relationship between the Chinese and Indians is quite interesting, too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Susan GerofskyNovember 30, 2024 at 1:46 PM

    Very nice post, Zain!

    ReplyDelete

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